Terry Oglesby, City Architect

The Pratt City Library is near completion and should be ready to open to the public in late January. Mayor Bell and Congresswoman Terry Sewell will complete a "walk through" of the new library today.

The Inglenook renovation is going well. The exterior has been completed and renovations on the interior have begun. The completion date should be in March 2014.

Committee Reports

Policies, Procedures, and By-Laws Committee

The Trustee Policy manual has been completed and submitted to the City's Legal Department for review.

Nominating Committee

Gwendolyn Amamoo will name the Nominating Committee within a week.

Advocacy Committee

Kimberly Richardson commented that the Library Board Fund report should be kept confidential and only those that are being asked to submit donations see the document.

Director's Report

Finance and Budget Update

Finance reports are in your packet. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Update of Library and Director Activities

Under the heading of good news, Mrs. Amamoo, Mrs. Welch, and I met with representatives of the Ensley Neighborhood and Jarvis Patton on December 5 to discuss the closing of the East Ensley Branch and what it would take for the library to keep it open. We explained that we needed a fulltime Librarian II Branch Manager position to be added to our budget. After a lengthy but pleasant and courteous discussion, Mr. Patton agreed that he would find the funding for this position to be added to the library's budget. We were authorized today to advertise the position. The position will be advertised and we plan to have a new branch head in place at East Ensley when the Pratt City Branch reopens.

The final walkthrough for Pratt City Branch will be on December 18 and we hope to receive a certificate of occupancy that day. If all goes as planned, we will begin the process of moving in and setting up the new library. We hope to have the grand reopening in late January. I will let you know as soon as we have definite information.

The Inglenook project is going well and is still on track to be completed by the end of January. In case you did not know it, Creig Hoskins and Callan Childs, who are our consultants on this project, are also consultants on the Central Library planning project.

Angela Hall and I are working with staff at the City to get the many smaller projects begun to make improvements to our libraries using bond funds allocated for this purpose. We will begin the process of planning the Wylam Branch project in January which was also funded in the recent bonds.

The IMLS meeting here at Central on Friday, November 15 went off without a hitch. The IMLS board members were very impressed with our library and all that we do. It was a real honor having them here.

We are beginning our planning process for the renovation of the Central Library. We will have our first visit by Alex Lamis and the rest of the architectural team from RAMSA December 12 and 13. We will meet with all parties involved including the city staff, our local consultants, both the library board and the foundation board, and all BPL branch and department heads. This meeting is basically to see each other face to face and lay out a plan and schedule for the process which will take from five to six months to complete.

I have been asked to serve on the board of the Literacy Council of Central Alabama. My appointment begins in January and reestablishes a tradition of the BPL director serving on this board. We have a number of ways we work with the Literacy Council and I look forward to discovering more ways we can collaborate.

Kelsey Bates, director of development, headed up the effort to have the City of Birmingham proclaim December 3 Giving Tuesday officially in Birmingham joining nonprofits across our city.

Gifts, Grants, Awards, and Donations

The library received $2,000 from the Huisking Foundation for literacy and youth services.

We were awarded a grant of $1700 from the Alabama State Council on the Arts in support of Bards and Brews. This grant is $700 more than we have ever received from them and we are very heartened by this support for this very successful BPL program.

The BPL Foundation annual appeal campaign is ongoing. I hope that our library board will be one hundred per cent in giving to this effort. The amount you give is not important but the fact that you give and support the BPL Foundation is very important. Please, send a check or go to the foundation web site at http://www.bplonline.org/Foundation/default.aspx and donate now. Thank you very much.

There will be a reception here at the library honoring donors to the Foundation and its annual campaign on Thursday, January 9.

BPL is once again participating in the “Reading with Ringling Brothers Rewards Book Club.” Children ages 2-12 may visit the library and join the club. Participants reading 5 books will receive a voucher for a FREE child's ticket with the purchase of a full-priced adult ticket to the Ringling Brothers Circus in Birmingham. The voucher must be redeemed at the BJCC Box Office.

Begin the Day: The Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture-- Human Trafficking 101, presented by Patricia A. McCay, Chair of the Huntsville-Madison County Human Trafficking Task Force, will discuss the victims of modern day slavery, explore the ways that traffickers entrap and control their victims and look at cases of human trafficking in Alabama.

Smart Investing, the finance education series which will be called Making Cents locally, will continue through May of 2014. A full calendar of events may be found at http://making-cents.org/. This grant funded project is designed to educate the public on personal finance topics and is a collaboration between libraries in Jefferson County and libraries in Shelby County. The full schedule is also available on http://www.birmingham365.org.

The Local Authors Expo and Book Fair will take place on February 1 at the Central Library. Authors are registering and plans are being made for workshops and associated programs. More details to come.

Exhibits in Central's Gallery

“Birmingham 2013: Remembering the Movement That Changed the World, “An exhibition curated by Dr. William Colvin, November 4 - December 27 Beginning in the mid-1950s and through the early 1970s, the visibility of African Americans, women and other disadvantaged citizens in the news media sensitized viewers and readers to the difficulties of survival in southern and northern, urban and rural, and distant and local communities. This exhibition portrays this American experience.

Ladies, Gentlemen and Bazards: The Art of Lois Wilson , 4th Floor Gallery from January 6 to February 21, 2014. Featuring a little known Alabama artist who died in 1980, the exhibit focuses on Wilson's "found art" where she used wood that she scavenged from demolition sites, parts of furniture that she disassembled, old brushes, ironing boards, toilet seats and left over food for coloring to take the trash that other people discarded and create art. The art illustrates the issues that were important to Wilson: environmentalism and conservation, racism, spiritualism, the needs of the aged and homeless, and the emptiness of modern American materialism. Laquita Thomson, Associate Professor of Fine Arts at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee will give a lecture entitled Alabama Mystic or Alabama Outsider: The Art of Lois Wilson at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 2, 2014 in the Arrington Auditorium. A gallery tour will follow.

Reminders

Dial a Story—Call (205) 226-3650 to listen to a great story over the phone!

Be sure to check the BPL Blog at http://bplolinenews.blogspot.com/ to keep up with all the activities going on at this library. You can subscribe and have any updates sent to your email if you have not already done so.

Unfinished Business

Gwendolyn B. Guster Welch moved to rescind the resolution to close East Ensley Library. Judge Vowell seconded the motion, which passed. (Vote 10-0)

Public Voices

Magnolia Cook, a resident of the Ensley community, asked that the Library Board choose a new East Ensley Branch Manager that is dedicated to the community and also offered the community's services for any help that the Library may need.

Smith thanked the City and the Library Board for keeping both the Ensley and East Ensley Library branches open.

Comments

Katrina Watson wished everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Patty A. Pilkerton wished everyone Happy Holidays and also stated that she has completed her first year on the Library Board.

Samuel Rumore stated that he was able to attend the meeting held with Alex Lamis and Creig Hoskins regarding the renovation of the Central Library and was happy with the progress being made.

Dr. Witherspoon wished everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and also expressed that she looking forward to working with the Library Board in 2014.

Dora Sims thanked the public that attended the meeting today and for letting their voices be heard. Mrs. Sims also thanked Gwendolyn Amamoo for her leadership as Library Board President and wished everyone Happy Holidays.

Kimberly Richardson thanked the public that attended the meeting today and for letting their voices be heard. Ms. Richardson also stated that she has completed her first year on the Library Board.

Georgia Blair announced that there will be free kindergarten readiness classes at the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church beginning on January 24, 2014.

Gwendolyn B. Guster Welch asked everyone to pray for the the family of Henry Harris Young, III. Mrs. Welch congratulated Marguerite Scott, James Lowe, and Leroy Mauldin on their retirements and congratulated Dr. Geraldine Agee and Chanda Temple for being instrumental in bringing author Omar Tyree to visit the Smithfield Library. Mrs. Welch enjoyed the Library hosting a second Christmas toy collection drive to be donated to the Department of Youth Services. Mrs. Welch stated that Mamie King Charmers was recognized as being the young girl in Charles Moore's Civil Rights Movement picture with the dogs and fire hoses and also thanked the public for attending Library Board meetings.

Dr. Regina Ammon attended a meeting with the University of Alabama at Birmingham public relations group which will assist in creating a digital presentation for the Friends.

Gwendolyn Amamoo attended Omar Tyree's visit at the Smithfield Library and also participated in the Department of Youth Services toy drive. Mrs. Amamoo asked that the Library Board keep the Oliver school children in their prayers and offered condolences to Samuel Rumore and Dr. Monique Gardner-Witherspoon for the passing of family members. Mrs. Amamoo congratulated Dr. Witherspoon for her appointment to the Girls, Inc. National Board of Directors in New York City and Renee Blalock for her appointment to the Literacy Council of Central Alabama Board.